Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[seano732]

the singers in ABBA are the result of a secret Nazi breeding experiment.



Sent from my iPad using TGR Forums

Wait, they're not????

[subtle plague]

Wait, they're not????

Of course they are, but that's not the point.

[goldenboy]

It's definitely interesting how quickly the intermediate host of SARS1 and MERS was found, but we still don't know for SARS2. It's worth googling that author though.

If proof is ever found that this thing did escape from a lab, wow. What's the world going to do, demand trillions of dollars from China for the damage caused?

Good 60 minutes clip as well.

[jono]

I get it, but I wouldn't have posted it if there wasn't some merit to the piece. The author did a really nice job. Closest to a smoking gun that I've seen.

I think he may have skipped or claimed "zero evidence" for a few things on the natural side where there actually is evidence. I'd like to see this critiqued by those who disagree with his apparent bias.

Still, the case that we know research was happening with less precautions than were necessary appears solid (if the public records are as claimed): if you're doing gain of function research to predict viruses then you must believe the research could have produced this virus, otherwise it would be useless in addition to being dangerous. And no one would claim that level 2 is adequate for SARS2.

Also, GOF research on Chinese soil has a national security interest for the US? GTFO. If it had been for spying someone should have tipped off the intel community to stop saying "it might have escaped from a lab." Nah. That was straight up illegal.

[Skidog]

Fascinating.

I have been kind of hoping this was a lab-created human mistake, because it then sorta means to me that this is less likely to happen again. Provided that lab learns from its mistakes, of course.

uhhhhh, i read in that article that there are many in the scientific community that are far from on board with "gain of function". I get the idea behind it, but man, the risk seems far from worth it without SERIOUS changes.
I mean a lot of what they seem to be making in these labs is unlikely to occur naturally for a long long time, if ever, but heck lets make it anyway? WTF?

[Skidog]

It's definitely interesting how quickly the intermediate host of SARS1 and MERS was found, but we still don't know for SARS2. It's worth googling that author though.

If proof is ever found that this thing did escape from a lab, wow. What's the world going to do, demand trillions of dollars from China for the damage caused?

Good 60 minutes clip as well.

not just China...USA funded part of those sites....

[riser4]

I get it, but I wouldn't have posted it if there wasn't some merit to the piece. The author did a really nice job. Closest to a smoking gun that I've seen.

There was a heavy 'Loose Change' vibe. The author tore down other's dot connecting and then connected a bunch of dots. I'm pretty sure we will never know for certain exactly what happened. Those who know aren't going to or no longer can talk. Those who are talking don't know.

[S_jenks]

The best piece I've read to date about the origin of the virus. Of particular interest is the discussion on the furin cleavage site. Has my eyebrows raised.

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/orig...es-6f03564c038

Thanks for the link. Really enjoyed reading that article.

The fact that the Wuhan Lab had funding coming from the US NIH really adds an interesting angle. Sending letters out early in the pandemic to discredit the idea of a lab-grown origin makes sense as a mitigation strategy, regardless of whether it originated there or not. Covering your own asses and all that.

The discussion on the 3rd possible scenario was really interesting as well, citing the similarities between 2020 RaTG13 strain and the current Covid strains.

But the lack of evidence produced thus far does scratch the head a little bit. From the article's conclusion:

Proponents of natural emergence have a rather harder story to tell. The plausibility of their case rests on a single surmise, the expected parallel between the emergence of SARS2 and that of SARS1 and MERS. But none of the evidence expected in support of such a parallel history has yet emerged. No one has found the bat population that was the source of SARS2, if indeed it ever infected bats. No intermediate host has presented itself, despite an intensive search by Chinese authorities that included the testing of 80,000 animals. There is no evidence of the virus making multiple independent jumps from its intermediate host to people, as both the SARS1 and MERS viruses did. There is no evidence from hospital surveillance records of the epidemic gathering strength in the population as the virus evolved. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out in Wuhan and nowhere else. There is no good explanation of how the virus acquired its furin cleavage site, which no other SARS-related beta-coronavirus possesses, nor why the site is composed of human-preferred codons. The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities.

I definitely agree that until we find evidence that points one-way or another, this is all just speculation. But I don't think the lab-escape theory worth dismissing completely at this point.

[bobz]

I hereby publicly apologize to Mr. D Trump, mtt, montucky and the others for thinking this artificial creation idea was a weirdo conspiracy theory.

It's worth noting that the main context of Trump's and his followers' "China did it!" was to deflect responsibility for his downplaying and failure to properly address the crisis. There was also an implication that this was germ warfare.

As I said more than a year ago (about the germ warfare idea that some had bandied about),

I don't buy it. (Certainly possible that this was an Ice Spiders scenario, though, where it was a lab virus that accidentally got out.) My point is, the US has no excuse for not being prepared for this, regardless.

[XXX-er]

The idea of China purposely relaeasing covid on the world which is also the market for everything they make seems hard to believe ?

whatever trump said could only true if your are a Trumper and thats not really us

[Skidog]

The idea of China purposely relaeasing covid on the world which is also the market for everything they make seems hard to believe ?

whatever trump said could only true if your are a Trumper and thats not really us

I wouldnt be so sure it was a "release", i bet more like accident. I mean they were manipulating viruses to infect humans and weren't treating the possible results as bad or potentially worse than SARS. Basically same level of infection control you find in a Dentist office...any of you wanna be around active SARS in a dentists office?

If it came from a lab, serious regulation is in order. fucking with nature is bad mmmmkay.

[huckbucket]

I get the balanced approach, but back to the furin cleavage site in the spike. Evolution is really, really amazing, but that thing just smells super funny, codon-optimized and all. Says in the article that there have been four other publications in which that cleavage site was introduced into SARS spike. I wonder if SARS2 is an exact match at the nucleic acid level to those publications (I assume the author looked). That would be game, set, match in my opinion.

[LongShortLong]

We definitely demonstrated not being prepared. Next set of terrorists may ditch pilot school for BSL 3 training.

[bobz]

^^^ The deliberate release (by China) scenario doesn't make sense, given that something that would seem to be quite portable got released (that is, originally appeared) in the heart of densely populated China.

There was a heavy 'Loose Change' vibe. The author tore down other's dot connecting and then connected a bunch of dots. I'm pretty sure we will never know for certain exactly what happened. Those who know aren't going to or no longer can talk. Those who are talking don't know.

As for Loose Change, lacking solid proof and having a conspiracy theory vibe were the least of Loose Change's problems. One, the conventional "theory" about al Qaeda coordinating a team to destroy buildings by flying planes into them had an abundance of detailed evidence supporting it. And two, Loose Change's claims were so preposterous that some of the articles, analyzing LC's claims at face value and detailing their many flaws, were almost funny.

That's hardly the case here. After the "wet market" theory failed to line up with any evidence, the whole question of the virus's origins seemed to more or less get dropped, in the mainstream media anyway; apparently there still isn't a conventional theory that's well supported. And given that the outbreak occurred in a particular city with a renowned virus research lab, which happened to be at the very least trying to develop an experimental coronavirus that could attack human cells (I haven't verified the author's claim that this is well documented, but if not, that would be easy to disprove), the "Ice Spiders scenario" would seem to be a strong Occam's Razor candidate.

Anyway, I expect this article to cause a stir, and no doubt we'll be hearing more about it from sources with more insight into this sort of thing than I have.

Edit to add:

[huckbucket]

Has the WHO put out anything worth reading from their on-site investigation into the lab?

[chaka]

[QUOTE=jono;6309174]

..GOF research on Chinese soil has a national security interest for the US? /QUOTE]

[MultiVerse]

I get the balanced approach, but back to the furin cleavage site in the spike. Evolution is really, really amazing, but that thing just smells super funny, codon-optimized and all.

I don't know enough to assess the genetic implications in this paper, discussed earlier in the thread, but it suggests viruses found throughout Southeast Asia, "shared part of the furin cleavage site unique to SARS-CoV-2."

Evidence for SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses circulating in bats and pangolins in Southeast Asia

If the furin cleavage site isn't dispositive, a smoking gun so to speak, and the Nature study holds meaningful clues then what about this scenario?:

• Strong SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies found in wild bats and pangolins throughout Southeast Asia
• Probably originated in bats
• It's as likely as not the origin was outside China
• The SARS-CoV-2 ancestor likely adapted to human replication after some time due to a single amino acid change
• The Huanan seafood market was not the origin but instead a regional nexus where it spread

[old goat]

From the Wade article: Proponents of natural emergence have a rather harder story to tell. The plausibility of their case rests on a single surmise, the expected parallel between the emergence of SARS2 and that of SARS1 and MERS. But none of the evidence expected in support of such a parallel history has yet emerged. No one has found the bat population that was the source of SARS2, if indeed it ever infected bats. No intermediate host has presented itself, despite an intensive search by Chinese authorities that included the testing of 80,000 animals. There is no evidence of the virus making multiple independent jumps from its intermediate host to people, as both the SARS1 and MERS viruses did. There is no evidence from hospital surveillance records of the epidemic gathering strength in the population as the virus evolved. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out in Wuhan and nowhere else. There is no good explanation of how the virus acquired its furin cleavage site, which no other SARS-related beta-coronavirus possesses, nor why the site is composed of human-preferred codons. The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities.


2 previous natural coronavirus epidemics in recent years but a 3rd is implausible? I don't get it.

We don't know that the virus started in Wuhan, or even in China, only that it was first identified there. The first cases in the US were retrospectively discovered in early December 2019, well before the first identification in the US in January 2020. There could have been unrecognized cases elsewhere in Asia or even outside of Asia before there were cases in a city dense enough for rapid transmission and with the scientific know-how to identify the disease. The Spanish flu likely arose in the US.

We still don't know the reservoir for Ebola. It took many years to identify the origin of HIV. Given how recent the COvid 19 pandemic is, the lack of evidence hardly means such evidence doesn't exist.

IMO the origin of Covid 19 is unknown--there is not nearly enough evidence to say that it emerged from a Chinese lab and not nearly enough evidence to state definitively that it didn't. However, given that zoonotic viral diseases that require no assistance from humans to infect us, the default hypothesis has to be that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally occurring virus, unless and until strong direct evidence of its origin in a lab is discovered. What that evidence might be a year later is hard to imagine. A hidden lab log book somehow verifiable as genuine? A panda with a barrel labeled ACME SARS-CoV-2?

If you want to be scared, consider that the US and Russia keep samples of smallpox. The anthrax attacks were caused by someone who had access to weaponized anthrax. It is easy to imagine someone on one or the other lunatic fringe of US society with access to the virus stealing it and spreading it. (12 Monkeys). And we know what Putin is capable of.

[John_B]

That article is way to similar to Loose Change for me to have any trust in it. The author may very well be right but his way of presenting information trips my bullshit detectors. I'm looking forward to seeing more intelligent responses to it that are dumbed down enough for me to understand.

[bodywhomper]

Did you all hear or read the npr story about developing strategies for stopping the next pandemic? Here’s a relevant quote:
“For example, Gray and his colleagues recently searched for undiscovered coronaviruses in people sick with pneumonia — and quickly found one. The team screened about 400 samples from pneumonia patients in Sarawak in Malaysia. They found at least four people infected with a new coronavirus that likely came from an animal.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...e-next-big-one

[huckbucket]

David Baltimore weighs in;

“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist and former president of CalTech. “These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2,” he said.

Who here feels like they have a more informed opinion? <--- that's a redundant question FYI

[stealurface831]

Who here feels like they have a more informed opinion? <--- that's a redundant question FYI

multiple people, i'm sure of it.

[huckbucket]

I don't know enough to assess the genetic implications in this paper, discussed earlier in the thread, but it suggests viruses found throughout Southeast Asia, "shared part of the furin cleavage site unique to SARS-CoV-2."

Evidence for SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses circulating in bats and pangolins in Southeast Asia

If the furin cleavage site isn't dispositive, a smoking gun so to speak, and the Nature study holds meaningful clues then what about this scenario?:

• Strong SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies found in wild bats and pangolins throughout Southeast Asia
• Probably originated in bats
• It's as likely as not the origin was outside China
• The SARS-CoV-2 ancestor likely adapted to human replication after some time due to a single amino acid change
• The Huanan seafood market was not the origin but instead a regional nexus where it spread

If we just look at the furin site comparing the supposed ancestor (RacCS203) to SARS-CoV-2, then it would have taken an aa insertion and at least two mutations to convert a valine to an arginine which is why the prevailing theory is that it was a recombination event rather than a mutation. But that theory is rightly dismissed by Wade because the "pool" of swappable elements from related beta-coronaviruses do not contain the PRRA site.

[MultiVerse]

Yeah, I guess the question is whether the fact there are other known coronaviruses with a furin cleavage site, just not very closely related, suggests anything? Your response(s) indicate unless new viruses are discovered then lab involvement is likely.

FWIW, I think an accidental release scenario is as likely as any other so my curiosity revolves around whether SARS2 is natural or manipulated in a lab.

As others have noted, one thing the Nicholas Wade article makes clear is gain‐of‐function experiments are incredibly dangerous but offer very little value fighting naturally occurring viruses.

[KQ]